40 dishes every Washingtonian must try in 2014

Readers and staff select the area’s best dishes, tapping more District restaurants than ever before. See whose BLT, fried chicken and doughnut made the cut. By Lavanya Ramanathan.

Salmon BLT at Neopol SmokeryDorian Brown, who with his mother, Barbara Lahnstein, owns Baltimore-based Neopol, smokes his Scottish salmon in an old-world style, working small batches over apple, oak and cherry woods to give it a sweet and smoky flavor. One of Neopol's signature meats (the Browns go through roughly 700 pounds of the fish a week), the smoked salmon is the heart of the BLT, flaked generously over earthy flaxseed bread and layered with salty bacon, tart mustard-dill aioli, tomato and bitter greens for a delicate take on a classic. "It's definitely the salmon that makes this sandwich rise above the competition," wrote Dawn Nelson of Capitol Hill, who nominated the dish.